2013 Mac Pro Mini: All New Design, Coming Fall

Say goodbye to the 10-year-old cheese grater Mac Pro. Not only is optical drive going bye-bye, but so is the big-box tower design that Apple rolled out way, way back in June 2003. In fact, according to the latest rumor, the 2013 Mac Pro will be very much like the current Mac mini — are you ready to go modular?

Rumors that Apple’s pro desktop design will be modular have been around for months if not years. That plot line gained fresh legs.

Lou Borella, the creator of the Facebook group We Want a New Macpro, says a pair of reliable sources have told the 2013 Mac Pro will arrive this Fall:

— It will be heavily reliant on Thunderbolt.
— There will be no internal expandability.
— It will have support for Dual GPU’s with three monitor support right out of the box.
— No FW800 or Optical drive
— It will be released in the Fall
— It will be a completely new design

Assuming Borell’s sources are right, Apple’s recent Mac Pro stock drawdown doesn’t indicate the imminent arrival of a new pro desktop, which would be disappointing.

That said, perhaps the more important question then is what kind of Thunderbolt enclosure(s) Apple plans to offer and what options will be available. For example, there are third-party rackmount enclosures for the Mac mini (image above) with two PCIe slots that fit the above description.

7 Comments

scattered

04/06/2013 at 04:04

If that’s the type of model, after 29 years of being macintized, we’re gone

Scott550

04/06/2013 at 11:37

Kiss my business goodbye.

2meterguy

04/06/2013 at 12:19

This would be great IF the hardware design allows developers to chain these modules together for greater cpu power (distributed processing between cpu modules). In addition, it would be NICE if the GPU (graphics processing) also increases with more modules in the chain. If Apple is using the new Haswell chips then this MAY be the case. Heres to hope.

darnell

04/06/2013 at 20:05

will apple be mad at people for making HACKINTOSH’S if they downgrade their professional offerings like this?

bob b bob

05/06/2013 at 14:44

It’s a beautiful idea, especially if it’s plug-n-play extensible. Thunderbolt could really be a game changer…